


A Midnight Conversation

by AyePatch



Series: AyePatch's Bumbleby Fics [9]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Splitting this off from my one shots fic, brief mention of suicidal thoughts, cuz I'm planning on grouping and indexing all my canon compliant stuff in a series, references to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AyePatch/pseuds/AyePatch
Summary: On a cold Atlesian night, Yang wakes up to find that Blake needs to get a few things off her chest.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: AyePatch's Bumbleby Fics [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2107353
Comments: 5
Kudos: 95





	A Midnight Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Brief mention of suicidal thoughts.
> 
> Takes place during Volume 7, sometime around Chapter 5

Yang groggily awoke as she felt her bed shifting from somebody climbing into it. Half on instinct, she raised her arm to allow Blake to crawl under the sheets, “What’s wrong, Blake?” she mumbled softly.

“Oh,” Blake replied with an almost surprised tone as she froze, only halfway in the covers. “Nothing. I…” She glanced away and her cat ears flattened nervously. “I’m actually feeling really good right now. I just thought…”

Yang raised her arm again and motioned for Blake to snuggle up. Blake’s ears perked up and she happily obliged, wiggling up against Yang until their bodies pressed firmly together.

“Thanks,” Blake said softly.

“What were you going to say?” Yang asked, wrapping her arm around Blake and squeezing her.

“I just…” Even in the dim light, Yang could see the blush on Blake’s cheeks. “I thought it might, y’know, be nice if, for once, we could snuggle up when nothing was wrong?”

Yang smiled, closing her eyes again contentedly. “You’re right,” she murmured. “It is.”

“How… how awake are you?” Blake asked hesitantly.

“I can hold a conversation if you’re feeling chatty,” Yang replied without opening her eyes. She felt Blake sigh contentedly against her.

“It’s just… been a long, long time since I’ve felt this happy,” Blake confessed. “I’m… honestly not sure if I remember _ever_ feeling this way before, even before Adam…”

“Things have been going right, for a change,” Yang commented.

“Yeah, but… it’s more than that.” Yang opened her eyes to see Blake looking down nervously, her cat ears pinned flat against her head. “I… I still don’t think I’m ready to really talk about… about _us,_ yet,” Blake admitted, “but I want you to know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I still remember my very first night at Beacon, looking up from my book to see a _very_ good looking girl marching up to me, dragging her sister along with her. That was the night that my life really started to turn around.”

Yang chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sorry for calling you a lost cause.”

Blake smiled, tucking a lock of Yang’s hair behind her ear. “You may have said that, but you never actually treated me like one. I… when we met in the Emerald Forest, it wasn’t an accident. I wanted to make sure that I’d wind up with someone who wouldn’t hurt me, so I had a few people I was planning on spying on. I don’t know why I decided to watch you first, if I somehow knew or if it was just a lucky choice, but when I saw you take down that Ursa… I don’t know. I just had this gut feeling that I couldn’t miss my chance. I picked you without even _looking_ at anyone else.”

Yang ran a finger along Blake’s jaw. “And here I was this whole time, thinking that it was just blind luck that I got the bestest, most amazing partner in the entire world.”

“Flirt,” Blake snorted, though she leaned in to affectionately butt her forehead against Yang’s. She let out a noise that was half-groan, half-giggle. “Gods, Yang, you’re making it really hard to have a nice, sappy moment here.”

Yang laughed. “Hey, as I’ve just been informed, _you’re_ the one who decided to get yourself into this.” Blake laughed and playfully swatted her shoulder. After their mutual mirth died down, Yang rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “Do you ever regret it?” She saw Blake’s ears pin nervously in the corner of her eye.

“Why… why would I regret it?” Blake asked, suddenly worried.

Yang sighed. “I’ve told you how people in my life tend not to stick around. My mother. Raven. My dad too, in a way. Hell, even my Signal friends all ditched me by the second week of Beacon. Having people actually stay is pretty new for me. You, Weiss, Jaune, Nora, Ren… I’ve never been friends with the same people for this long before. Sometimes, it still doesn’t quite feel real. Like, there has to be some kind of catch, if that makes sense?”

Blake sighed. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. But, for what it’s worth, I haven’t regretted choosing you for a minute. At least, not for my sake.” She hung her head in shame. “What I’ve done to you, on the other hand…”

“Hey,” Yang said softly, gently guiding Blake’s chin back up with her finger. “We’re past that now. You made mistakes, yes, but you’ve more than made up for them. And if I had the choice to go back and change the past so that I never met you, knowing full well all the good, _and_ bad things that have happened to me since then, I wouldn’t. And it would be the easiest choice I’ve ever made. My semblance may make my hair glow,” she said with a soft smile, “But you’re still the brightest light in my life, Blake.”

Blake groaned and buried her face in Yang’s shoulder. “Ugh, that’s so sappy, my hands are getting sticky just _thinking_ about it.”

Yang narrowed her eyes teasingly. "Hey, weren't you _just_ talking about wanting a 'nice, sappy moment'?"

"Well, yeah, but I wanted to be the one thanking _you_."

"Too bad. You’ve done too much for me to let this be a one-sided conversation.”

Yang felt Blake’s weight shift in the bed as she rolled over on her back as well. “Yang, I…” Blake began, and something in her tone told Yang that it was time to stay quiet. “I know you don’t feel like I owe you anything,” Blake continued quietly, “but _I_ do. And it’s been like this big knot of anxiety that’s been building and building, and every time I try to release it, to _thank_ you, you just tell me not to worry about it. But that just slows it down. It doesn’t stop it. And it doesn’t make it go away.” She turned to Yang, and even in the dim light, the blonde could see the pleading in her partner’s amber eyes. “So please, just this once, can you stop being humble, and actually act like you’re _proud_ of what you’ve done for me?”

Yang wanted to protest, to tell Blake that she thanked her every day just by being around, but she knew that wasn’t what she needed to do right now. She needed to listen. She gave Blake a comforting smile. “Okay.”

“After Adam, what I _wanted_ from a partner, and what I _needed_ from one, were two very different things. I _wanted_ someone who would sweep me off my feet, someone who would take charge and lead me to new, exciting places. But I _needed_ someone who would let me breathe, let me feel in control. I _wanted_ to follow _your_ lead, but I _needed_ you to follow _mine_. And you gave me both. Exactly when I needed it. Most of the time, at least. More than anyone else had before, or has since. Even at my lowest point, the night before the dance, when you dragged me to that lecture hall and tried to get me to relax, you didn't _make_ me. You didn't demand an answer, and you didn't need it to be what you wanted. You made your point, said what you wanted to say, and left me to make my own call. That was so _new_ to me. Being _allowed_ to disagree with someone I care about. It… after you hugged me, when you let go, it felt like you took a weight off of me that I didn't even know I was carrying.

“Since that day in the Emerald Forest, you've taught me what it feels like to be loved. _Truly_ loved. And you've helped me fix so many of the parts of me that he broke. Helped me re-learn all the lessons I thought I knew but didn't. In that sense, I could almost say you've been a mentor to me, but that would be wrong. Because you've never been above me. Never held authority over me. Never allowed me to put you on a pedestal like I did with him. Since the day we met, we've been equals, and even my worst mistake didn't change that.”

Blake’s voice started to shake, and her eyes glistened with tears as she continued. “And I _know_ that I’ve apologized for leaving you a hundred times, but I’ll apologize for it a thousand more, because I _still_ feel bad for it, and I always will. There will _always_ be days when all I can think about is how much I regret hurting you. How much I regret the time we lost together. Time that we can never get back. While I was in Menagerie, I thought that there was a good chance that you’d hate me forever. A part of me wanted you to. But another part of me _desperately_ wanted you to take me back, even if I felt like I didn’t deserve it. _And you took me back_. Even after everything I did wrong, all of my mistakes, you still saw me for the _good_ I had done! The good I could still do! And you never let me forget that, never let me lose that side of myself again, even when you were still hurting.”

Tears began to roll down Blake’s cheeks, and Yang reached out, pulling her partner into a tight, comforting embrace. Blake buried her face against Yang’s shoulder for a moment, before pulling away just enough to press their foreheads against each other and look directly into Yang’s eyes, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “And you saved my life. Not just at the fall of Beacon, when you threw yourself at Adam to save me. Not just in Argus when you helped me fight off and finally free myself from the worst monster I’ve ever faced. And not just all the countless other times you’ve had my back in a fight. I…” She choked out a sob. “There were times when you were all that kept me going. After Beacon fell, when my new life was in shambles and I had no idea if I would ever even have a home again, I knew I still had to keep fighting. Not just because I wanted more than anything in the world to see you again. But because _you_ taught me that _I_ was worth surviving for. That, no matter how low I may have thought of myself, no matter how many mistakes I made, _my_ life was worth defending. If it weren’t for you, and everything you taught me…” She buried her face against Yang’s shoulder and her shoulders began to shake. “If the Grimm or Adam hadn’t finished the job… I would have done it myself.”

“Blake…” Yang felt her heart break in two, and she held Blake as tightly as she could, half to comfort her sobbing partner, and half to reassure herself that she was still there. She felt tears start to run down her own cheeks, and _Blake_ , who was _sobbing_ , who was in _far_ worse shape than her, _Blake_ pulled away and reached up to wipe the tears from _Yang’s_ eyes.

“Hey,” Blake managed to say as her sobs finally began to calm down. “I made a promise to you, and I’m _going to_ keep it. I’m not going _anywhere_ without you, no matter what. And… whatever happens, I’ll keep fighting. And not just for the people I care about this time, but for _myself_ , too.” Yang managed a small smile, and Blake sniffed, wiping her face on her sleeve before continuing. 

“When I started at Beacon, I was just a scared, broken girl that wanted to fix everything that was wrong with the world, but didn’t know what I needed to do. And I still don’t know what I need to do. But I _do_ know that, _whatever_ I do, I want to do it with you. And I…” She trailed off. She still wasn't ready to say it out loud— wasn't ready to hear it, either, but that didn't mean she couldn't still tell Yang how she felt. Locking amber eyes with lilac, Blake slowly, deliberately squeezed her eyes shut, before opening them again. _I love you, Yang_.

And Yang may not have been a cat Faunus herself, but she'd picked up on Blake's particular love language rather quickly in their time together, and she answered without hesitation, slowly squeezing own her eyes shut and opening them again, as well.

_I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you want to see! Your feedback is a big part of what keeps me motivated!


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